Yumiko Takeshima

Costume designer

Biography

Japanese dancer and costume designer Yumiko Takeshima made her Royal Ballet debut in 2013, creating the costume designs for David Dawson's The Human Seasons.

Takeshima was born in Asahikawa and studied at the Miharu Ishikawa Ballet School and San Francisco Ballet School. She has danced with Universal Ballet, Alberta Ballet, Eliot Feld Ballet, New York, and Dutch National Ballet. She is currently a principal dancer with Semperoper Ballet, Dresden. For Semperoper Ballet she has created costumes for William Forsyth’s Second Detail and George Balanchine’s Apollo. She has designed costumes for Dawson since 2000, for ballets including A Million Kisses to My Skin, Grey Area, 00:00, Gentle Chapter, Reverence, Giselle, The World According to Us and Faun(e) . She also designs costumes for Jorma Elo, Martin Lawrence, Darrel Toulon and Anna Lopez Ochoa.

Takeshima founded the dancewear company Yumiko in 2002. The company was the official dancewear supplier for Darren Aronofsky's film Black Swan (2010).